This report is focused around Lost and Found data using the intakes and outcomes data received for 2019-2020. Its goal is to reflect everything we could learn about L&F from the available data, make sure the numbers we see make sense, and highlight things that would be useful to show but some/all data required for them are missing.
Date range: 2019-01-01 to 2020-12-31
Scroll down or use the table of contents on the left to navigate throughout the document. Most sections contain multiple tabs showing different facets of a data type. Most plots are interactive, meaning they include tooltips and allow hiding and showing parts and zooming in and out. If something went wrong, look for the house icon in the top right corner of each figure to reset.
This section provides an overview of the RTH rate per year divided by species.
This table covers all strays and RTHs. RTH rates shown below are the number of strays with RTO outcome out of all strays. Looking at your subtypes, we excluded animals born in shelter (BORN @ SHT) and trapped (TRAP) from this count, trying to leave only those picked up by field services (PICK UP, CAUGHT), left over the counter (OTC) or abandoned at the shelter (LF AT SLT/VET). If we should change the inclusion/exclusion logic of strays this is easy to do.
When we go over this, let’s make sure we calculate the rate the same way you do, so we would want to make sure what we see makes sense. If these numbers are right, they are slightly higher than the HASS average of 30% despite a decrease from 2019 into 2020.
| Species | Year | Strays | RTH_Count | RTH_Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cat | 2019 | 19175 | 258 | 0.01 |
| Cat | 2020 | 10570 | 136 | 0.01 |
| Dog | 2019 | 14089 | 4919 | 0.35 |
| Dog | 2020 | 7302 | 2299 | 0.31 |
| Other | 2019 | 1656 | 23 | 0.01 |
| Other | 2020 | 1031 | 15 | 0.01 |
This one only counts animals who came in as strays from the field. Normally, we would then split these by RTH method between RTO in the field and in the shelter, but since there is not a way to tell whether field returns happen from the data, this is left out.
Field animals were considered anything with PICK UP or CAUGHT subtypes.
The RTH rate is slightly lower than the rate for OTC animals which appear on the next tab.
| Species | Year | Strays | RTH_Count | RTH_Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cat | 2019 | 1250 | 18 | 0.01 |
| Cat | 2020 | 728 | 14 | 0.02 |
| Dog | 2019 | 1816 | 527 | 0.29 |
| Dog | 2020 | 889 | 239 | 0.27 |
| Other | 2019 | 313 | 10 | 0.03 |
| Other | 2020 | 186 | 3 | 0.02 |
This shows the numbers only for strays that were public drop offs or other subtypes (including abandoned at shelter). Indeed, the rates are slightly lower than field intakes for dogs (32% vs. 27% in 2020).
| Species | Year | Strays | RTH_Count | RTH_Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cat | 2019 | 19196 | 254 | 0.01 |
| Cat | 2020 | 10155 | 124 | 0.01 |
| Dog | 2019 | 12345 | 4392 | 0.36 |
| Dog | 2020 | 6452 | 2060 | 0.32 |
| Other | 2019 | 1549 | 13 | 0.01 |
| Other | 2020 | 1005 | 12 | 0.01 |
These three time series show the RTH rate per month, to show whether there were times with particularly high or low rates as well as the overall trajectory.
It seems like the rate has been pretty stable over all with peaks around the turn of the year, which is a pattern identified in multiple other shelters.
This figure only counts strays who had a subtype of OTC, which is the most frequent one. This shows the decrease the yearly stats show – it seems like the return rates for field pickups have been slightly increasing in 2020 (see next tab) so the overall rate figure seems more stable despite the slow decrease visible for OTC animals in 2020.
#### Non-OTC RTH This is the complement to the previous figure – all strays who were not OTC. The RTH rate improves in 2020, as opposed to the OTC dogs.This section shows the number of stray intakes over time, as well as the breakdown of strays by field/shelter intake. It mainly helps us get a sense of your intake volumes.
OTC is the vast majority (again this is mostly context for us, this is probably no news for you).
The average difference in length of stay (in days) between strays with RTH outcomes and all other strays is shown in the table below – roughly 13 days for dogs and 5 for cats when looking at the average.
That means that every successful RTH saves 13 days of care on average at LA Animal Services, and field RTH would save an extra day or two on average for RTH from the shelter.
This could translate to pretty significant cost savings at scale – assuming a daily cost of care of 30$, if 1000 more dogs were returned home in 2020, it would have saved LA Animal Services about $390,000 in costs of care. This is a fairly simple calculation, but it gets at the magnitude of the potential benefits.
| Species | Outcome | Count | Average_Length_Of_Stay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cat | Other Outcomes | 18708 | 8.30 |
| Cat | RTO | 410 | 3.22 |
| Dog | Other Outcomes | 11856 | 15.46 |
| Dog | RTO | 7218 | 2.41 |
The following maps show stray intake and RTH rate by Census tracts to highlight geographical patterns. The first and second tab are similar to previous metrics; the third tab, RTH Gap, shows the number of strays who were not returned home per census tract.
The data used in this section is the ‘finders zip’ field in the files sent to HASS. We tried to use the ‘where found’ field which would provide the more accurate location, but it was missing for many animals. There was often a reference to a ‘source address’ in that field, so if there is another location field that would be better to plot here, we can do that! Using a specific address will also help us narrow down the map from a ZIP code level to something more granular like a Census tract.
The ZIP codes mapped below are only those with prefix 90, 91, 92, or 93. These seemed to be accounting for the majority of animals. Additionally, animals born in shelter, left at shelter, left at vet, with a ‘NULL’ value on where found, or a value including the word ‘shelter’ are removed to eliminate animals left at the shelter.
The area around the airport stands out most clearly.
Note that the areas with the highest stray intake also have among the lowest RTH rate, and vice versa.
This combines the other two tabs to highlight where most additional RTH potential exists - it shows the number of strays NOT returned to home in each area. As the RTH rate is fairly low in the areas with the highest stray intakes, it looks pretty similar to the first map.
Overall, these maps show data for 19398 stray dogs of which 6693 were RTH.
This is similar to the maps above, but for 23200 cats of which 360 were RTH.
The map looks somewhat similar from far out, but a few different areas stand out. Only ZIP codes with 10+ cats were counted.
Since RTH rate is pretty low across the city, it is also low throughout in this map.